[TriLUG] Kernel append statement

[Aaron S. Joyner]

Roy Vestal wrote:

> Where do I find a listing of the options for the kernel append statement?
>
> TIA

If you mean a list of the options that you can append to the kernel at 
boot time via the boot loader (either manually or via it's config file), 
note that these arguments are available both to the kernel, all compiled 
in drivers (depending on the arg) and to the init program (which may or 
may not be the classical init, based on the kernel args you supply and 
how your kernel was compiled).  You can get a list of the arguments that 
affect init from it's man page.  The kernel itself takes quite a few 
options which are listed in the source for the kernel you're running, 
possibly located at /usr/src/linux/ (or where ever your distro put it, 
or at kernel.org if you don't have it installed), under 
Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt.  You can pass driver-specific 
arguments, such as aha154x= to pass specific args to a driver.  To find 
the arguments parsed by said driver, look at it's source in the kernel, 
in linux/drivers/scsi/aha1542.c, look for __setup(... , ...).  The first 
arg to the __setup() function is the arg you passed in at boot time, the 
second arg is the function which will parse your arguments.  Typically, 
there is a comment describing the options the driver takes.  Note that 
this is only applicable to compiled in drivers, not to modules, which 
are not loaded in the same manner and thus can not be passed arguments 
from the boot command line.  You must pass them arguments via the module 
loading code, later in the boot process.

More details can be found here, as well:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/BootPrompt-HOWTO.html

Aaron S. Joyner